by Ella Frank
“Nope,” Henri said, as he led them down to the pier away from the bungalows. “I said we were vanishing. That means just you and me, officer. You worried?”
Hardly. In fact, that sounded like heaven. “Nah, I’ve seen you in a boxing ring, remember? I can take you.”
Henri turned. “If my memory serves me right, we didn’t finish that match, and when we got home, I took you.”
Bailey was instantly transported back to Henri’s loft, Henri’s stairs, and as he stood there bathed in the warm Jamaican sun, a shiver skated down his spine, his body remembering in explicit detail every second of being so deliciously…taken.
“True,” Bailey said. “Maybe when we get home you’d be up for a rematch?”
Henri took Bailey’s chin between his fingers and nipped at his lower lip, then he swiped his tongue over the top. “Oh, I’m already up for it. You just let me know when you’re ready to take me on.”
Bailey sighed against that teasing mouth, his worries from the last couple of days a little less difficult to bear when he had this man by his side. “I’ll be sure to do that.”
“Hmm, good.” Henri reached down and took his hand, and as his warm fingers enveloped Bailey’s, that feeling of belonging once again overtook him. “Now, you ready to really disappear?”
Bailey grinned. He’d never been ready for anything more. He followed Henri the rest of the way down the pier and climbed into one of the speedboats.
The water sprayed their faces as the boat sped along the ocean, and Bailey relished the warm breeze and the sun heating his skin. The cold winter nights were just starting back in Chicago, so he planned to soak up every minute of this tropical paradise while he could.
After a few minutes, the boat slowed, and Bailey opened his eyes to see Henri looking in his direction, though with his Aviators on, he couldn’t tell if Henri was looking at him or past his shoulder.
“This is you,” the helmsman called out as he pulled up alongside a small dock outside a big overwater bungalow, only this one wasn’t attached to a walkway or any other bungalows. The closest one was far enough away that he couldn’t even make out if someone was there.
It seemed Henri hadn’t been lying. When he wanted to vanish, he knew exactly how to go about it, because as far as Bailey could tell, they were in about as remote a location as they could possibly get.
Bailey shrugged his bag up onto his shoulder and followed Henri onto the dock.
“So?” Henri said, as they entered the main room of the bungalow. “What do you think?”
“Are you kidding?” Bailey’s eyes roamed over the space: high ceilings, polished wooden slats. A view of the Atlantic surrounded them, and beneath their feet, a runner of clear glass showcased the ocean below. The front and back entrances were both open wide, letting in the breeze. Peering out the back, Bailey could see a pool, a hot tub and deck area, and stairs that led down to a private dock set up with two lounge chairs. Yeah, he just might never leave.
“This place is amazing,” Bailey said, tossing his bag by the bed. “I can’t actually believe I’m here.”
Henri dropped his duffel by his feet and shoved his sunglasses up onto his head as he looked around. “Why not? You got something against the ocean? The sun? Or is it relaxing in general you don’t like doing?”
Bailey scoffed and looked over his shoulder to the crystal-blue water that surrounded them as far as the eye could see. “I live on a cop’s salary. This kind of place is usually something I look at on the television and think, I wish.”
Henri walked over to Bailey and hooked a finger in the front of his shorts, drawing him forward a step. Once they were close enough that Bailey could feel the heat emanating from Henri’s body, Henri pressed a kiss to his lips. “Maybe you should consider going into the private sector.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Or…you can just consider me your personal genie. You wished to come to a place like this? Wish granted. You get two more while we’re here.”
Bailey wound his arms around Henri’s neck and hummed against his mouth. “I like the sound of that.”
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
“And what do I have to do to get these wishes?” Bailey asked as he ran his fingers up into Henri’s hair. “Rub you?”
Henri’s lips curved. “Why don’t you give it a try to find out?”
Bailey was about to do just that, but Henri’s stomach growled, making him chuckle.
“Looks like you might have a hunger for something else right now. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I could eat.”
Henri smoothed his hands down over Bailey’s ass and squeezed. “Usually, I’d suggest you get on your knees about now, but…I am actually hungry. So why don’t you go and find us a spot to sit? I’m gonna grab our lunch.”
Henri turned to the door that led through to what Bailey assumed was the living area and kitchen. “You’re going to serve me too? Now this, I could get used to.”
When Henri reached the door, he stopped, glanced over his shoulder, and ran his gaze down Bailey’s body. “While we’re here, I plan to serve you in all kinds of ways, officer. But if you don’t get the fuck out of this bedroom, food won’t be the first.”
Bailey was tempted to stay, just to see what Henri would do, but then his stomach grumbled and reminded him that they really hadn’t had anything to eat since earlier that morning. As Henri disappeared into the next room, Bailey made his way outside to the balcony that ran the entire perimeter of the bungalow. The pool glistened in the sunlight, enticing in its invitation, as did the hot tub in the far corner and soaker tub on the back deck.
The place was paradise, no question about it, and when Bailey spotted a large round chaise swing, suspended from the solid beams of the balcony, he knew exactly where he wanted to eat lunch.
Kicking off his flip-flops, Bailey hopped up on the massive swing that had about ten too many cushions, which he tossed down on the wooden slats behind him. He stretched his legs out, tucked his hands up behind the huge navy-blue pillow he’d kept, and took in a deep lungful of the salty air. The sound of the water lapping at the pilings below was peaceful as he closed his eyes and let the tranquil surroundings relax him.
These past few days had been intense, a whirlwind both personally and professionally, and having this moment, this time to turn his brain off and not think about anything other than how good it felt to just be, was a blessing. One that Henri had thought up, planned, and provided on a silver platter.
Henri…
Bailey glanced over to the open door and thought about the man he’d left inside, and couldn’t help but hope that Henri was feeling even a tenth of what he was when it came to the two of them.
Surely, Bailey couldn’t be the only one experiencing this intensity between them whenever they were alone, whenever things got closer, quieter, deeper between the two of them.
They’d spent nearly every waking and non-waking hour together since the night before last, and the more time he spent with Henri, the more Bailey found himself wondering, What would it be like to belong to someone like him permanently? To have him be…mine?
Henri had told Bailey that he wasn’t the kind of man to let anyone inside. But somewhere along the way, he’d let Bailey in. And Bailey had to believe that meant they were somewhere in the same vicinity when it came to how hard and fast they were falling in—
“You didn’t fall asleep out here, did you?”
Bailey shoved his thoughts aside and shifted up until he was resting on his forearms, looking in Henri’s direction. With his sunglasses back in place, he had a large platter in one hand and an ice bucket with Coronas in the other.
As Henri stepped under the awning, his lips curved.
“You approve?” Bailey asked, as Henri kicked off his flip-flops.
“Yep. I was hoping you didn’t pick the loungers on the dock, otherwise we’d end up as cooked as these suckers here.”
As Henri put the
platter down on the cushion beside him, Bailey looked at the full seafood spread of lobster, crab, shrimp, and oysters, and his stomach decided to pipe up again.
Henri laughed. “I see I’m not the only one with an appetite. You should’ve said you were hungry. We could’ve gotten you something when we got off the plane.”
“You could’ve said something too,” Bailey said, sliding the platter closer and taking the lids off the condiments.
“I wasn’t hungry then. I was more focused on getting you somewhere private, somewhere…alone.” Henri climbed onto the cushion and stretched out on the opposite side, as Bailey reached for one of the shrimp.
“You know, I used to hate these as a kid.”
“Shrimp?”
“All seafood, really. Shrimp, crab, lobsters.”
Henri turned his nose up. “Umm, I’m suddenly rethinking our entire relationship.”
Bailey grinned, his heart warming at the easy way the word relationship had just fallen off Henri’s tongue. “Well, I love it now. But whenever we did Seafood Sundays—”
“Seafood Sundays?”
Bailey nodded. “Yeah. No matter if Mom or Dad were working or not, at some point every Sunday, they would pile us kids in the car and take us somewhere for seafood and then a game of baseball—if it was sunny. It was usually somewhere local, nothing fancy. There was this one place that Dad used to go fish at with his police buddies, um…Murray’s Beach. There’s a little restaurant that sits off the parking lot of the boat dock, The Ramp.”
Bailey looked at the shrimp in his hand, surprised by his sudden trip down memory lane, and then dunked it in the cocktail sauce. “I have no idea if it’s still there or not.”
Henri stared at him from across the swing, a thoughtful expression on his face. “You don’t go back there anymore?”
Bailey shook his head. “No. I… We… It’s too hard to go back to places like that without them. I prefer to remember that as it was. Does that make sense?”
“It does,” Henri said, as Bailey reached for a beer and then handed him one too. “Can I ask you something? You don’t have to tell me. I’m just curious.”
“Of course,” Bailey said as he twisted the top off.
“How long ago did you lose them?”
Bailey reached for another shrimp, and then he met Henri’s stare head-on. “It was five years, this year.”
“This year?”
“Yes. They died a week before July fourth.”
HENRI DIDN’T KNOW what to say, which was a first. What had started out as a flirty afternoon at a secret hideaway to forget had quickly turned serious when he’d somehow managed to transport Bailey back to an even worse period of his life.
Poor Bailey. Henri couldn’t begin to imagine the pain he must’ve suffered, losing not one, but both parents at once. Henri had no clue what it was like to be loved by a person whose blood ran through your veins. But judging by Bailey’s somber tone, it was a sadness you never got over.
“I’m sorry,” Henri finally said. “I didn’t mean to bring up something so painful.”
Bailey had once said his family was close, that the house he lived in was where they’d all grown up, and Henri had to wonder how Bailey was able to live there now. How did you walk through a house and see memory after memory of the people you had lost and still come out on the other side smiling, still come out as rounded as Bailey was? Henri would be a total fucking mess, of that he was sure.
“Don’t be,” Bailey said, his voice soft. “I’m glad you asked. I want to tell you about them. I want you to know me, and I want to know you. Even these harder things.”
As Henri stared into those earnest blue eyes, his stomach knotted and his heart broke a little. Because while he wanted exactly what Bailey had just said, he also knew it could never be like that. It could never be that simple.
Not for him…not for them.
“It was the week before the Fourth of July,” Bailey said, and Henri took a sip of his beer for something to do with his hands. “Mom and Dad went to this barbecue that they and their friends had every year. It was my father’s rookie class at the academy, and they’d all been friends forever.”
Bailey chuckled. “Some of those guys were—are—like second fathers to me. They’d been in our lives since I was born, since Sean was…and anyway, I’m getting sidetracked. They went to the barbecue and had a great afternoon, we were later told, but on their way home, they were in a car accident.”
Henri’s fingers tightened around the neck of his Corona as he watched Bailey closely, looking for signs that he needed something more. But his cop was focused right now, intent on getting through this as quickly as possible, so Henri kept quiet and made sure not to interfere.
“Their car was totaled, completely destroyed in the crash,” Bailey said as though relaying a scene from work. “It clipped the front end of a red Toyota Camry and flipped several times.”
Bailey clamped his teeth down into his lower lip, the first sign that the story had gotten to him, and Henri reached for his arm.
“They died instantly,” Bailey said as he looked at Henri, and while there was grief and pain swirling in those blue depths, there was also something Henri had seen just recently—anger—and he couldn’t help but wonder who that emotion was reserved for. God, maybe?
“I know I keep saying this.” Henri squeezed Bailey’s forearm. “But I’m sorry you had to go through that. To lose both of them at once? I can’t even begin to imagine how painful that must’ve been for you and your brothers.”
Bailey’s eyes creased at the sides as he offered up a half-smile and acknowledged Henri’s words the way someone does when they’re trying their best to keep their real feelings locked inside.
“It was painful. Unimaginably so. But what was truly devastating, what was—and still is—the most difficult part of losing them, was finding out a day later that at the time of the accident, your father, the man you thought hung the moon, had been so far over the legal alcohol limit that it was a miracle he could walk from the park to the car in the first place.”
Oh fuck.
Bailey’s lips pulled tight. “Right?”
It took Henri a second, but then he realized he’d said that out loud and nodded. “Bailey…I—”
“I know. It’s so fucked up.” Bailey shook his head. “Here was this man, a decorated police officer who’d been on the force for over twenty years. Known to all his buddies as a stand-up guy, a dedicated father, a loving husband who everyone looked up to—who I looked up to. And that night? That night, he decided that instead of being any of those things, he was going to be a drunk. And then he got in a car with my mom.”
Henri had known it was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier to hear. The level of pain, anger, and resentment Bailey had felt in the wake of such a discovery must’ve been unfathomable.
“I hated him for that. For a long time.” Bailey swallowed, then he turned his hand over, and Henri automatically entwined their fingers. “At least, that’s what I convinced myself. It took me a couple years and a lot of therapy to come to the conclusion that I didn’t actually hate him, I hated his actions that night, his disease.”
Bailey fell silent. Henri stared at their hands and rubbed a thumb over the top of Bailey’s.
“Wow,” Bailey finally said. “You’re probably looking for the closest speedboat right now, huh?”
Henri raised his eyes and shook his head, and when Bailey’s lips quirked up on one corner, Henri leaned over and kissed him there. “I was just thinking what an incredibly special man you are.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do. Your capacity for forgiveness is like no one’s I’ve ever met before.” Henri lifted their hands and turned Bailey’s over, and as he pressed his lips to the center of Bailey’s palm, he closed his eyes and said exactly what was in his heart: “I love you.”
As the words left Henri’s mouth and floated through the air between them, it was like t
he rest of the world had faded away. Then he opened his eyes and stared at the face he was now convinced was the only thing he needed in his life to survive and saw the answer he both feared and wanted more than his next breath.
Bailey leaned in, pressed a kiss to Henri’s lips, and whispered, “I love you too.”
Chapter Seventeen
CONFESSION
Special. Cherished. Loved.
That’s how Henri makes me feel.
LATER THAT NIGHT, as the water lapped against the pilings of the bungalow, Henri stared at the blades of the fan that spun overhead. He couldn’t sleep, hadn’t been able to for the past three hours, and as he listened to Bailey’s deep, even breathing, he knew exactly what was keeping him awake—guilt.
God, his stomach was twisted up in knots with it, and as he looked across the massive California king the two of them lay in the center of, Henri wondered if he’d made a huge mistake in bringing them there.
After dinner, after that incredible, life-changing moment—I love you too—when Henri’s world had gone from something he merely existed in, to something he was now excited to be a part of? He and Bailey had decided to spend the evening in the hot tub, where they’d made out like a couple of lovesick teenagers until exhausted, then climbed into this bed, where they were now cocooned away from the rest of the world in this thin cotton netting.
It was all very romantic—the room, the bungalow, the seclusion of it all—and while his original intention in bringing Bailey here had been to give him a chance to breathe, having his cop all to himself had made Henri forget that confessing his heart and soul was not exactly the smartest thing for him to do.
Shit. What had he been thinking just blurting his feelings out like that? Without thought, without consequence. But Henri knew exactly what he’d been thinking: I wish I had been there for him. I wish I could’ve held him and loved him through all of that. The way I love him now. And before he knew it, the words had just fallen off his tongue.